My Northern Salvation
by True Colours
Summary: ‘You mean me no harm,’ he repeated with weary derision, loosening his hold a little so that Carlisle could breath. ‘You Northerners are all the same.’ When Jasper walked into a diner one rainy afternoon, he met the immortal who changed his life forever...
1. Chapter 1

**My Northern Salvation**

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Twilight or any of the characters therein.

**A/N: OK, to all those of you waiting for my other fics, and PARTICULARLY 'I've Never Been Held', **_**sorry**_**. Band Together is complicated right now, but I swear I am working on it, I will not let it go off the boil. This fic would not stop bugging me, though I have a sort of love/hate relationship with it, so I thought I might as well get it out of my system and get a few reviews. My empty inbox is starting to depress me. Plus I'm breaking into a new fandom. Update: I finally got round to putting up the new title! Phew.**

Jasper pushed open the door of the diner and stepped through. Everywhere else was crowded with people trying to get out of the rain, but this small and greasy restaurant was mercifully quiet. He glanced around, taking in the ancient wooden beams which were the sole survivors of someone's attempt at modern, hygienic-looking decor. Tasteless lace curtains and laminated table-tops everywhere. The strong, unappetizing odour of human food was enough to distract from the smell of the few customers there, if not to mask it completely. That was a relief. Jasper was thirsty, and there was something about the rain that made humans' smell blossom and grow until it was almost irresistible, but the rank, bolshy smell took away his appetite. He sniffed the air briefly. It was probably unwise to court temptation like that but self-preservation demanded it. Human blood, human sweat, food frying…and then a twist of something that made him freeze where he stood.

Cold and sweet, yet somehow more wholesome than Maria's scent had been, it reminded him a little of pears, or leather. Its crispness made his mouth water in an entirely different way than human blood, even as it set him humming with tension. He sniffed again. The scent was unmistakable: the smell of another vampire.

It was no-one he recognised. At least that meant it was not a definite enemy. Jasper flicked his eyes slowly round the diner, trying to pick his fellow out. Finally his gaze rested on a blond man sitting with his back to the door. It was difficult to tell, with his face and skin hidden…but then he stiffened in his chair, as enhanced senses warned him of Jasper's presence. He was the one, all right.

The blond vampire turned. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, and was as beautiful as any of their kind, but Jasper wasn't paying attention to his face, only his eyes. They were not red but a bizarre, unsettling shade of ochre-gold. Perplexed, Jasper edged sideways to look from a different angle, trying not to appear vulnerable or unsure. A man at the table nearest him was throwing him an odd look.

The blond vampire smiled.

Jasper nearly jumped backwards in shock. More disconcerted than ever, he peered forwards at the man, trying to make out more from his expression. He didn't like the way the blond man's smile showed all his teeth, but though he was cautious Jasper couldn't sense any aggression. Not yet, anyway.

As Jasper stared, the blond man jerked his head very slightly, in invitation. Jasper was still floundering at the unexpected turn of events, but at this he squared his shoulders and marched over. It would not do to flee now, or to show any sign of weakness. Putting up a good show of courage was often half the battle, both with humans and with vampires. Some things never changed.

He slid warily into a chair and studied the other man's face. There was a kind of gentleness written into it which stirred something in Jasper, but the strange eyes still frightened him. He reached out with his sixth sense and tasted the other vampire's emotions. There was sorrow there, not fierce grief but a kind of long-residing melancholy, and more of the strange tenderness that marked his face

'Hello,' the vampire said, his voice a clear tenor with a faint English accent. He held out his hand. 'My name is Carlisle Cullen.'

'I am Jasper.' Jasper placed his hand guardedly in Carlisle's, tensing as the vampire's fingers closed around it.

'I'm pleased to meet you, Jasper,' Carlisle said courteously. His face relaxed into what seemed a genuine expression of greeting. Jasper didn't trust it an inch. Carlisle leaned closer and added quietly: 'I have not encountered any of our kind for a long time.'

So he _was_ a vampire, for all his strange eyes and manner. Jasper didn't answer, just sat rigidly in his chair, staring. Tendrils of curiosity were unfurling slowly from Carlisle Cullen now; he was frowning slightly, examining Jasper's face.

'Can I get you anything, Sir?'

Jasper looked up sharply. A waiter had approached and was looking at him expectantly. He now noticed that Carlisle's hands were curled around a cup of black coffee. The blond vampire was certainly very concerned with keeping up a convincing charade.

'No,' he said coldly, leaning forward so that his eyes caught the light. The man flinched at the glint of red and hurried away. He and Carlisle were left alone.

'You seem adept at mingling with humans,' he said stiffly. Carlisle seemed to be the type to make small talk and maintain a polished, urbane facade, and Jasper was beginning to feel rough and graceless by comparison.

'Yes, I am well used to mingling, even interacting,' Carlisle agreed. He paused, and Jasper felt another wave of that inexplicable sadness wash over him. It fit in nicely with his own depression, which had dissipated briefly with the possible need to defend himself from an unknown immortal, but was now creeping in again. He stared numbly at the red-chequered linoleum of the counter as Carlisle sighed a little and continued. 'As I said, I have not had contact with immortals for a while. Any news would be welcome, quite frankly.'

'News.' Jasper chuckled, baring all his teeth. 'The news down South may not be all to your liking, _Carlisle_, but why not? I could use some company.'

He stood, and Carlisle followed suit, sliding a fifty-cent tip across the counter. Jasper raised his eyebrows incredulously at the money, shrugged and led the way out of the diner.

'So, news,' he said as they walked up the deserted high street. There was a muttering of thunder overhead, and he was struck by the fancy that the Volturi had reached out from their stronghold in Italy to admonish him, daring him to speak ill of them, even in their absence. 'Well, things are fairly peaceful right now. The Volturi cleared the place out not long ago; it's still pretty quiet. I can't tell you much about how territory is distributed at the moment.' Jasper's face darkened for a second. _I can't tell you much. _It was a simple sentence to convey the betrayal and subterfuge, the turmoil and destruction, that went to create such uncertainty. 'If you're on a visit to a friend, my only advice would be not to expect a warm welcome,' he said bitterly.

'No,' Carlisle murmured. 'No, I'm not visiting a friend.' Jasper felt a spike of annoyance at the vague sadness in his tone. Anybody whose greatest sorrow was a lack of friends had an easy life.

'And you?' Carlisle enquired. 'What of you? Do you claim territory near here? Do you have a mate?'

'I think I have talked enough, Carlisle,' Jasper said mildly. 'Tell me.' His voice grew steely. 'Where do you come from? Who is _your_ mate?' he let his teeth glitter.

'Where do I come from?' Another sigh. 'Well, I am a nomad, for the most part, with no fixed home, though I tend to stick to the North. I came to the New World from Europe, though, how long ago? A century, now? I lose track. Since then I've wandered, lived for a decade here and there, doing nothing of note, really, since I left the Volturi –'

In a split second Jasper had confirmed the street empty and pinned Carlisle to the alley wall. He held him there with one arm pressed into his throat. The blond vampire's feet were barely touching the ground.

'Volturi.' The word came out as a low, guttural snarl. Carlisle lashed out instinctively, but Jasper grabbed his wrist and twisted his arm above his head. He leaned forward, using his elbow and shoulder to pinion the vampire's other arm, then spoke.

'Volturi? Do you know what we call those _peace keepers_ here in the South? Do you know what they have done to us? And now here you come, their associate, asking questions about my _mate_ and my _territory_. What are you, some kind of _spy_?' He pressed harder against Carlisle's windpipe, though it was technically impossible to strangle the other vampire to death. When Carlisle spoke, his voice was very low, and hoarse from lack of air.

'I mean you no harm, Jasper.'

He could sense the perfect sincerity of the words. Too perfect. There was no aggression in Carlisle, despite his predicament. Jasper was confused, but he pushed the emotion away, letting disgust take its place.

'You _mean me no harm_,' he repeated with weary derision, loosening his hold a little so that Carlisle could breath. 'You Northerners are all the same.'

'Actually I am from England.'

Jasper snorted.

'The English are even worse. Isolated on their rainy little island where they can come out in the daytime and it never gets too crowded. It's easy for you to speak of peace.' He stepped away from the wall and Carlisle fell forward onto his knees.

'Those boasting the friendship of the Volturi will not find much hospitality here, Carlisle Cullen,' Jasper said quietly, looking down at him. 'It's a lesson you would do well to learn quickly.'

Without waiting for a response he turned, speeding up to blur out of the ally, leaving the strange, passive vampire behind him.

**wofhuntsmoon:** I was tempted to give Carlise a 'light English tenor' at the point where you told me to describe his voice when he was greeting Jasper. XD


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Disclaimer: **I am pleased to say that I did not write Twilight.

**A/N: It's a long time since I posted any of this, and I don't think it has much of a following, so it's not very high on my priorities, but if anyone really wants to see more chapters, just let me know and I'll try to get something together. And obviously I would really, really like reviews. If I know that people like it, I'll be more likely to update. Anyhow, I had this chapter down on paper so I thought I'd type it up and post it. I made the vampires' powers slightly less in the last scene, just to give Carlisle something to lecture Jasper on. Because, quite frankly, with the level of speed they have in cannon it's just boring. **

As Jasper ran, he tried to put Carlisle Cullen out of his mind. He needed to hunt, and that was hard enough these days without any extra confusion preying on his mind. He skidded to a halt in a dingy alleyway and crouched in a doorway to await the coming of darkness.

He sat there, motionless, his head on his knees. He could not sleep, but no mind can bear to remain unceasingly conscious, and by and by he slipped into a kind of trance, the instinctual part of his mind keeping track of his surroundings while his thoughts drifted. The sun came out and swung through a long arc in the sky until its rays were falling within a few feet of his hiding-place. The light was red now, bloody. He roused himself and stretched out a hand into it, so that ruby glints shattered off his skin. He stared at his glittering arm, at what it meant about its nature, letting the monster seep through him and take hold. It was easier to hunt this way.

His sharp ears caught footsteps, and the laughter of two girls. Dinner. He closed his eyes and followed their progress. He heard one of the girls split of and head south, away from him, but the other was still approaching. He let his head tilt back against the wall, nostrils flaring to catch her scent in the air.

The girl entered his alley. He could ere the echo of her footsteps bouncing from wall to wall. He kept his eyes closed, but he knew she had seen him when he felt a wave of astonishment roll off her. It was quickly followed by admiration. Shyness. Anxiety about being alone with a grown man, and a little concern for him, sitting pale and tired against the wall.

He opened his eyes and turned to look at her. She was a young woman, about eighteen, with long dark hair rolled and braided and a basket on her arm. He caught the first flickers of trepidation off her as some buried instinct warned her of danger. Smiling slightly, he stood with one fluid push of his legs. He needed no sixth sense to hear her gasp in wonder at his beauty.

'Good evening, sir,' she said as he stepped slowly into her path. Jasper did not reply.

'Can I help you, sir? I – OH!'

He had caught her by the arm and spun her into the doorway where he had been hiding.

'Tough me again and I'll scr-' she began, but then the fading sunlight fell on him and the words died on her lips. She simply gazed in awe. Jasper felt a mix of horror and derision; could she still find him beautiful, after this? _I am not beautiful,_ he thought. _I am a monster. _

Slowly he crouched, fingertips splayed on the ground for balance, his smile widening into a feral snarl. A growl slid between his teeth. And then the girl really did scream, not a scream for help but a primordial shriek of pure terror. She launched herself past him and sprinted down the street. Jasper spun round and leapt into the air, landing in her path and pivoting to face her, and for a moment her bolting instinct hit him so strongly that it nearly made him turn and run. Then he had her by the throat and was flinging her into the wall. Her head flew backwards and struck it with a sharp crack.

'No!' she was sobbing as he closed in on her. 'Please! Ma, I've got to get home to Ma! Help, help, please...'

He felt her fear, a wild, blind panic. Confusion – he was an angel, he wasn't supposed to murder and kill – and then something that twisted his stomach and nearly knocked him to his knees. Disgust. To her he was a demon, a creature of the devil. Revulsion swept through him/ He couldn't feed, he couldn't bear it, but the biting instinct was too strong. It felt like he would tear in half. He lunged for his victim's throat, thrusting his forearm into the way just in time. His teeth scythed into his own stony flesh, and the girl cried out in horror. Jasper let out a roar of pain as his venom stung at him. Another punch of emotion from the girl, another stab of pain, and suddenly they were both screaming. In a second his nails were going to break her skin, and then there would be no escaping the blood-lust of the depression that would follow.

And then a cold, hard hand came down on his shoulder, and a voice said:

'Jasper.'

He caught the faintest whiff of leather and pears again, cutting through the reek of blood and sweat and fear, almost like the varnish carpenters used in their workshops.

'Carlisle,' he rasped.

'Come, Jasper. Come with me. Leave her.' Carlisle's voice was calm and measured as he turned to the girl, who was staring at him wide-eyed, her breath coming in wrenching sobs.

'It's alright,' he told her gently. 'Go home to your Ma.' He reached out a hand towards her, but she flinched away. Carlisle lowed his hand, his eyes cast down, and began to steer Jasper away. As soon as they were out of sight Jasper began to run.

He wasn't trying to escape Carlisle, and didn't particularly object when he fell into pace beside him, though he did wonder why the blond vampire didn't just leave. He was trying to get away from the place where the hideous scene had occurred. Nothing seemed to matter but putting as much space as possible between himself and that alley.

He sprinted as hard as he could, trying to work up a bit of burn in his legs, to take his mind off things. But his perfect muscles never protested. His bitten arm stung, but in the wrong way. They left the last of the houses behind, pounding uphill towards a patch of woodland. Finally he stopped in a clearing. Twilight gathered beneath the trees, but it did nothing to dull his sight.

He dropped onto a fallen log, cradling his arm. Carlisle sat down beside him, reached for his wrist and said:

'Let me see.'

Jasper ignored him, but Carlisle tugged more insistently, and eventually Jasper let him draw out his arm and examine it.

'It's not too bad,' he pronounced eventually. 'Ragged, but it will heal.'

Jasper didn't bother to point out the obviousness of this statement.

'I'm sorry.' Carlisle smiled apologetically, as though he had guessed Jasper's thoughts. 'It's habit, you know.'

That remark was cryptic – it might even have been intended to provoke questions – but Jasper ignored it. He brought his arm up to his mouth and sucked, drawing out some of the venom.

'What happened?' Carlisle asked. 'When I met you, I presumed you were like all the rest of our kind, but with...that girl...'

He was hesitant, worried about offending Jasper, but there was something else there too. Was it...hope?'

It was only curiosity about this hope that prevented Jasper from tearing Carlisle apart for witnessing his weakness. Instead he began to speak.

'Perhaps in your time you have encountered a vampire who has skills above and beyond the ordinary?' he started. 'Someone who is, as the Volturi put it, gifted?'

'Yes...' Carlisle said evenly.

'I...' Jasper got up and paced slowly across the clearing, swallowing surruptitiously. '...I am gifted. I can sense people's emotions, and manipulate them as I choose. Excite a lethargic crowd, clam an adversary...'

'So?' Carlisle prompted. 'You are gifted, and...?'

Another spike of that _hope. _Jasper had thought himself to be in control, but now he rounded on Carlisle, snarling.

'I sense every emotion!' he bellowed. Comprehension dawned on Carlisle's face. '_Every emotion! _And they call it a _gift!_' He lashed out with a fist, punching into a tree, knocking a chunk out of its trunk. 'A gift? It's a curse! I feel their awe.' His voice was rough with unsheddable tears. 'When they see my beauty. 'They're ready to _worship_ me.' The wild rage rose in him again and he lunged forwards, punching and kicking at the tree, trying to find something that did not yield like matchwood beneath his stony fists. 'And then fear, horror, pain, DISGUST!' His words were lost in a senseless roar as he slammed his forehead and open palms into a granite outcropping. That was better. It only suffered a little at the impact, and left rough white lines on his skin, the way his nails had done when he was human.

'I feel every second along with my prey,' he choked. There was a grinding ad squeaking as his nails gouged into the rock. 'It's _weakness. _If I can't feed, I might as well curl up and die. But I can't even do that.'

For a long time there was silence in the clearing. Jasper stood, his arm against the boulder and his head in his hand. Carlisle had not moved from his spot on the log since Jasper's tirade began.

'It might be weakness, it might not,' he said at last. 'I have no gift, and I have never tasted human blood.'

Jasper whipped round faster than the eye could follow.

'You have never tasted human _blood_?' he echoed incredulously. 'You mean...you don't _hunt_?' His eyes raked Carlisle up and down. The other vampire was not wasted or weak, he looked to be in the positive bloom of health. But how could that be?

'Oh, I hunt alright.' Carlisle grinned briefly. 'But not human beings. Animals,' he added, seeing Jasper's mystified look. 'I have seen you wondering about my eyes. They are a result of my unorthodox diet.'

'Tell me about it,' Jasper ordered, moving imperceptibly closer.

'There's little more to tell, really,' Carlisle shrugged, almost as though her were embarrassed. 'Those are the technicalities.'

'But _why?_' In all his time as a vampire, he'd never thought he'd come across something that his brain couldn't compute. But he couldn't seem to get his head around this one. 'It can't be easy.'

'And it wasn't,' Carlisle agreed. ;But for me, killing humans was never an option. When I changed, I was horrified by what I have become. I tried everything I could think of to put an end to myself, but as you know that's not easily done.'

Jasper ran a finger over the feathery tracery of battle scars on his forearm, now overlaid with his own toothmarks, which were already beginning to seal.

'I hid myself, far away from human habitation,' Carlisle was saying. 'My resistance was weakening, I was afraid of what I might do it a human crossed my path.

'I was weak by now, though still too strong, and wild with thirst. When a herd of deer passed my hiding-place, I attacked instinctively. I cannot describe the relief...' He closed his eyes and swallowed. 'The relief of quenching my thirst, and the relief of realising that I didn't have to be a monster. And so my new philosophy was born. Had I not eaten venison in my former life, after all?'

'Had you not indeed,' Jasper agreed with an almost hysterical laugh. He was still grappling with this new concept. His first instinct was to dismiss the other vampire as mad. No gift to get in the way, and he still wouldn't hunt? Where was the sense in that? But another part of him, the part that suffered most whenever he hunted, was feeling hope...

'I swam to France after that,' Carlisle was saying meditatively. 'I hunted during the day and attended university by night, studying – don't laugh – medicine.'

'You trained as a doctor?' Jasper spluttered.

'Yes, yes.' Carlisle was chuckling himself now. After a moment his face slowly became serious again. 'I find a great deal of comfort in saving human lives, you see,' he admitted. 'I like to think that, occasionally, people may be better off because of what I am.'

;So why did you come to the new world?' Jasper was trying to keep the conversation rolling, so that he could carry on digesting this new concept.

'I was looking for companionship. In Italy I met immortals much more civilised than those who had changed me – the Volturi – but they did not understand why I chose this way of life, nor did they know of any others who shared it. They persisted in trying to cure my aversion to my 'natural food source' as they put it. So U came to America. I had acquaintances, vampires I knew well, and whose company I enjoyed, but always out feeding habits stood as a stigma between us. I thought them cruel, they thought me insane. I was very lonely.'

'And couldn't you have created a companion?'

'I have considered it, many times, but it felt wrong to force this life upon another when I regret my own transformation so much. I remember when I was working in Chicago during the influenza epidemic of 1918, nursing a family: a husband and wife, and one son. The mother demanded that I save her child, almost as though she knew what I was, but I was undecided and he slipped away while I debated. There was a young woman in a town where I worked, named Rosalie Hale. She was...a great beauty. Raped and murdered by her fiancé and his gang. I worked over her for hours when I found her dying in the street. It seemed like too much waste to just let her die. But what did I have to offer her? I would have loved her like a daughter, but she already had a father. She died. It was a bitter loss for all who knew her.

'And then there was a woman who had fallen from a cliff. Of all those I had considered changing, I was most sorely tempted by her. But it looked like suicide to me. She had lost a baby in the same hospital they brought her to after she jumped. I could not condemn her to an eternity of that pain. So I let her go.' Carlisle's voice dropped to a whisper. Jasper regarded him in silence. He understood the sadness now, and the hope.

'You think I'm mad, don't you?' Carlisle asked matter-of-factly.

'Yes. I almost despise you, but it's hypocritical of me. Incapable as I am of hunting.'

'Yes.' Carlisle's face was deliberately impassive, but Jasper could feel his hurt and disappointment. Then he said abruptly:

'Do you remember what they always used to teach us when we were human?'

'They taught us a lot of things. The memories are vague –'

'Do no murder. Love thy neighbour as thyself. In some shape or form, those teachings were always there.'

'As soon as I came of age...' Jasper sat down next to Carlisle and rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands... 'I joined the army. I suppose I never valued human life much...the woman who changed me put me in charge of her army of newborns, and then I had to kill those, change them and kill them...nothing but blood and death.'

'Blood and death,' Carlisle agreed.

'My coven was broken.' Jasper could feel something swelling inside him, clawing to get out. 'I split from my – my mate after we lost our territory in Monterrey, and travelled with acquaintances for a while, but I drew apart from them as well, estranged by my depression. All my immortal life I've lived...in a climate of hate...I've felt suffocated...oh God, I've been so lonely...'

'I too,' Carlisle murmured, and finally Jasper broke down and wept. Carlisle wrapped an arm tentatively around his shoulder, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by a desperate need to be comforted. He turned his face into Carlisle's chest while tearless sobs wracked him, breathing in the steadying scent. It was nowhere near as satisfying as human crying, but it was a relief nonetheless. A part of him wondered if he was actually suicidal, putting himself at the mercy of a complete stranger, but no sooner had the thought occurred to him than he was disgusted with himself. He didn't understand how or why, but Carlisle was not like that.

After a couple of minutes he pulled himself together and drew away. It was silent in the glade, except for his raged breathing, but suddenly Carlisle turned his head. Jasper heard it too: sounds of passage through the brush.

'I was going hunting when I found you,' Carlisle said. 'If you would like to accompany me, I'll show you how it's done.'

'I am thirsty,' Jasper said, by way of assent. 'What do we hunt?'

'I prefer the blood of carnivores when I can get it, but I think we'll have to make do with deer tonight.'

'Deer?' Jasper wrinkled his nose in distaste.

'It isn't the most appetising drink in the world, but it's wet and haemoglobin-filled, so why complain?'

'What's haemoglobin?' Jasper asked, following Carlisle as he jumped up and began to stride off into the trees.

'An iron compound which helps blood cells to bond strongly with oxygen.'

'Oh.'

'Keep downwind,' Carlisle said more quietly, waving a hand to steer him to the side. 'They smell better than humans and we don't want to scatter them.'

'Sorry,' Jasper said again, feeling suddenly clumsy, foolish and consequently irritated. 'But can't we catch up to one?'

'They're faster than humans too, and our instincts aren't tuned to hunt them. The way a herd scatters and bolts can be confusing, so it's best to jump them as smoothly as possible...'

His voice fell away and he slid into a fighting crouch. Jasper followed suit, staying a length behind as they crept through the undergrowth towards a thick growth of bushes, beyond which he could clearly smell and hear the deer. Carlisle paused for the length of a heartbeat, gauging angles, then sprang.

Since the start, Carlisle had unsettled Jasper. His urbane manner, his civility, odd habits such as tipping the waiter, had all struck him as verging on unnatural. Add that to all his talk of compassion and kindness, of complete abstinence from human blood, and he seemed quite mad, hardly a proper vampire at all. But watching him leap on the deer, Jasper could see that whatever strange ideas he might have, Carlisle was one of his own kind. Difficult to relate to, but not impossible. He struck the deer full-on, all the perfection of vampire reflexes on display, his eyes full of proper bloodlust as he sank his fangs into his victim's throat.

Jasper shifted his attention from watching, remembering that he had to make a kill himself. A deer was bolting right at him, and he crouched to intercept it. The animal struck him head-on, tumbling them both head-over-heels. It hurt not at all, but the speed and power of it took him by surprise. The kicking legs were so much stronger than a human's, without even trying, and it struggled without human inhibitions. This was a wild creature, not softened by a lifetime of relative safety, and it cared not at all that he bore the appearance of a human. It continued to struggle wildly until he snapped its neck and bent forward to feed.

The blood was weak-flavoured, unappetising stuff; it compared to human blood the way fine beef consommé might to an infusion of grass and leaves that a child might boil on the stove. But Jasper hardly minded that. He was too busy _not_ minding the emotions of his prey.

He had felt a little vague fear off the bolting herd, but it was nothing compared to the acute, aware emotions of humans he had hunted. To be able to feed, to taste blood without the constant barrage of hate and horror! He drained his kill dry – there was more blood in it than in a human – and then pushed it away and sat back on his heels. He drew a hand across his mouth and breathed in deeply, eyes half-closed.

Carlisle was done. He turned to look at Jasper, his eyes, flooded with blood, glowing a buttery gold in the half-light of the forest. Jasper flinched a little away from the bright, pale stare, and clambered to his feet.

'So how do you like red deer, then?' Carlisle said at last, trying to sound jovial and coming across awkward.

Jasper swallowed again and grimaced. 'Not up to much, is it? Ugh.

'I'll tell you this, though, it was more fun than hunting a human. I had to work a little bit. And the...the other thing...wasn't nearly so bad.' He stood there for a moment or two, rubbing a hand up and down the back of his head, considering. 'I'll tell you this, though, I couldn't keep it up on my own.'

'Well.' Carlisle said. '...I'd be happy to hold you to it.'

Jasper supposed that they had been working up to that. He considered heading back to the outskirts of town where he hid, hunting humans, enduring the emotion for the fleeting, greedy pleasure of feeding. He imagined stalking these woods on his own, trying to hold himself to the diet of dear – like beating his head against a brick wall, back when that would still have hurt. Neither of those options was very attractive.

He eyed Carlisle. The other vampire was an odd customer, no denying it, but he didn't seem dangerous – travelling with him would probably be as safe, if not safer, than staying alone. He didn't seem a bad sort. He might even turn out to be quite agreeable. And, Jasper was beginning to decide, he was sick of being on his own. It was time for another stint of companionship, and travelling with Carlisle, living mainly on animals, with maybe a human here and there, sounded as good a course of action as any. Looking at the open, intelligent face, he thought they might well have something to talk about.

'Carlisle Cullen,' he said, 'if it's all the same to you, I think we'll stay together for the time being. You can help get me started on this...what d'you call the habit?'

Carlisle gave the shadow of a grin.

'Vegetarianism.'

**A/N: I'm not entirely sure what happened to my dialogue at the end there. Possibly I've been reading too much Watership Down. Seriously, guys, every time I pick up that book I feel misery at the thought of all the people in the world who aren't experiencing it. Go. Read. That. Book. It's by Richard Addams, I think. Strong candidate for the best novel ever written.**

**True**

**PS. I'm trying to remember who suggested this title. Thanks, whoever you were!**

**Forksintheroad: **Of course you may! Oops, I forgot there was a chorus...*looks sheepish*

**Anonymous:** Thanks a lot.

**YourDarkMistress...: **Well, now you know...up to a point. Haha, I'm so evil.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Twilight.

**A/N: This chapter comes with a special shout out to **Torchwood-babe**, who kicked me into writing again with a PERSONALISED PM. I get quite excited when that happens, albeit a bit stressed.**

**On with the fic!**

Carlisle bared his teeth, dashed forward and sprang.

Before Jasper could dodge, the other vampire was upon him, landing on his back with all the advantage of weight and height on his side. Jasper fell to his knees, allowing his shoulders to roll forward with the impact. Carlisle pitched over his head, carried by his own momentum, landing flat on his back on the forest floor. Jasper immediately seized his wrists and pinned them.

How Carlisle Cullen had cut it with the Volturi was a mystery to Jasper. He couldn't fight _at all_.

He was staring up at Jasper now, not looking the least bit put out at having been floored for the twentieth time that morning. But then, Jasper was quickly learning, that was Carlisle – open and friendly on the surface, inscrutable further down, and completely unpredictable in what mattered to him.

All the same, he groped for something constructive to say. 'Not bad,' he said at last. 'You would have beaten a newborn.'

'Oh.' Carlisle looked pleased. He made to sit up, and Jasper let go of his wrists. 'Jolly good.'

'Yes.' Jasper got to his feet. 'But you've got to remember to always leave yourself a way out. If you just go hell-for-leather like that, an experienced fighter is going to take advantage of it.'

'I see.' Carlisle frowned. 'But if you are constantly trying to plan two moves at once, never acting unless you are positive that it's safe, surely that makes for a very cautious, defensive sort of fight?'

'Well, yes, but...' Jasper swung his arms back and forth in exasperation, trying to think how to explain. It was a perfectly good question. 'You just have to _feel_ it,' he said at last, and then gave a rueful grin. _Feeling it_ was the one thing that Carlisle seemed to be incapable of doing.

It was odd, because he was not slow or weak – if he had been, he could never have kept up this vegetarian business. Deer were a hundred times more challenging to hunt than humans. When Jasper stalked humans, he didn't have to worry about startling them; they were drawn in by his human face. When he attacked they rarely even fought, mostly just froze in shock and screamed. When they ran, they ran in straight lines. But deer were different. The first whiff of his scent would have them starting up from their grazing, hard, well-trained muscles bursting into action to propel them away from danger. They ran in a shifting, indistinct mass, and then scattered abruptly, leaving him reeling as his hunting instincts pulled him in a dozen different directions at once.

He would never have kept at it for even these two short weeks if it hadn't been for Carlisle. The blond vampire would leave Jasper downwind of the herd, swing round and startle them, driving them towards him. It was his task to make the jump, darting into the herd and breaking a few necks before they scattered. Then he and Carlisle would drain the corpses while they were still warm.

It was a method that worked excellently, and it even showed a pretty good eye for strategy. So why couldn't he apply it to fighting?

Carlisle was repositioning himself opposite Jasper. His knees were slightly bent, hands open and held up in readiness, but he looked more awkward than anything else, going through the motions without really understanding them. To Jasper's astonishment, he even looked almost _bored_, as thought the whole exercise was just something he was going along with to humour Jasper. And in a way, he supposed, it was. He'd suggested it because he'd been sick of watching Carlisle do more than half the work when they hunted. He felt a sudden hot flush of embarrassment – of course if didn't reach his cheeks – at the realisation. But didn't Carlisle realise that combat was important? Was he completely oblivious to the world around him?

Well, if he was bored, maybe it was time for Jasper to make the fight a little more interesting.

Carlisle was still positioning himself, but Jasper struck without warning. Carlisle hadn't found his balance yet, but when you were a vampire all those old combat techniques weren't really necessary. His reflexes kicked in, propelling him out of the way of Jasper's attack and into a perfect battle stance, poised for action. Turning, Jasper saw him crouch for a split-second before he resumed the awkward position, half-crouch, half urbane posture, that he had been using before. He probably didn't even realise it himself, but he was unconsciously correcting.

Jasper grinned, letting his teeth glitter. So the reflexes _were_ there. It was just a matter of shocking him into using them.

He growled. Carlisle stayed calm – they had been playacting this way all morning, after all – but Jasper could see that he was wanting to assume a defensive crouch, to give a warning growl in response. _Go on then_, he thought. _Warn me off; there's nothing stopping you. _He feinted sharply, and Carlisle mirrored the motion instantly, his arms jerking up to protect his face. _Good, but don't flail about. Don't panic._

He curled his fingers, letting all the civility seep out of his posture, replacing it with threat and challenge. Then he attacked.

As he sped up, time slowed down, giving him long moments to pick out every detail of his target. Once again, Carlisle was just a fraction of a second too slow. Safe in the assumption that Jasper would simply knock him down and then let go, he was losing that crucial instant's reaction time. Jasper seized his shoulders, but instead of simply pinning him, he landed a hard kick in his stomach. At the same time he snapped his teeth loudly together an inch from his throat.

When training newborns, there were a few simple rules, which you went by if you didn't want them to go crazy on you. One of them was to never, ever use your teeth.

Carlisle flinched and twisted away, a powerful contortion of muscles that dislodged Jasper and sent him spinning away. Jasper rolled to his feet, grinning in triumph. His attack had been just as strong as any of the previous ones, but this time Carlisle was still standing, because he had reacted properly. He had fought back.

Jasper wheeled round and launched into another attack, and this time Carlisle dodged. He didn't want another kick like that first one, either. But he wasn't panicking. He wasn't going bezerk, like a newborn would. _Not bad,_ Jasper thought. _Now let's see if he can keep his focus._

He met Carlisle head-on, engaging in a few seconds of the duck-dance-dodge routine that characterised vampire combat, then sprang clear. Even his enhanced muscles felt the strain of moving so fast, and he imagined that he must have been invisible to Carlisle. He seized a tree branch to halt his upward momentum – the wood splintered at the impact – kicked back down off the trunk and landed on Carlisle's shoulders, seizing a handful of his blond hair.

Nothing panicked newborns more than a grip on the hair, and sure enough, Carlisle began to thrash. At the same time a snarl, a real snarl, ripped between his teeth, and Jasper felt the old fighting-feeling fizzing up inside him: part fear, part excited aggression. He could feel Carlisle's muscles bunching and twisting beneath him, strong enough to tear into him if he made one mistake. His free hand went to Carlisle's throat, curling into his windpipe, and Carlisle snarled again and twisted his head to the side, trying to get his teeth into Jasper's wrists. He struggled again and Jasper felt a lurching sensation as both of them toppled backwards, Jasper underneath, Carlisle's head landing on his stomach. Carlisle moved, back-flipping off him, and suddenly he was the one pinned on his back.

Every survival instinct he had ever developed kicked into play, and he gave a blood-curdling roar, wrenching himself free of Carlisle's hold, spinning round and falling upon him with fangs bared. He bore him to the ground, twisting his right arm away with one hand, pinning his legs, dragging his head back to expose his throat.

'Steady on!' Carlisle protested. The words – indignant tone, British accent – cut through Jasper's haze, and in that instant's hesitation, the fury faded, and he was himself again. Jasper Whitlock, kneeling on the forest floor with Carlisle Cullen beneath him, looking shocked, pained, annoyed, but not particularly frightened, and not the least bit as though he believed this could have ended with razor-fangs meeting in his throat.

For a moment, Jasper struggled for a way to respond. Then he relaxed and grinned, showing every one of his teeth.

'Not bad. But I win again.'

'All right. Now let me up.'

Ah, there was just the slightest bit of wariness there, after all. Jasper sat back on his haunches and Carlisle stood up, flexing his shoulders. He grimaced, rubbing his head where Jasper had pulled his hair, his expression so like a pout that Jasper sniggered.

'What?' Carlisle demanded, his expression turning even more aggrieved. Jasper shook his head in disbelief. Didn't he realise he could have killed him?

'You're still not trying hard enough,' he said. 'You had me there, and then you just let me jump you. Don't _stop_.'

Carlisle nodded, now massaging his neck.

'You can't give an inch, because you can bet that your opponent isn't going to just give up and be torn to pieces while they can still struggle. Remember that for our next bout.'

'I will. But I think I've had enough for now.'

Jasper shook his head. 'You think you'll be able to say that when someone's fighting you for real?'

Carlisle turned to face him full on. 'Jasper,' he said. The use of the name prodded at something deep down inside him, irritatingly. 'Why do you speak as though it's inevitable that we will run into a fight?'

Jasper didn't say anything, just let incredulity show on his face.

Carlisle sighed. 'I know what the state of things in the South has been like, but things are different here. We're much further north, not part of any feud or clan, two nomads, travelling. I assure you, up north one can run into coven after coven, meet, talk, and not experience any aggression for years at a time. Civil relations between our kind are perfectly possible.'

There were a dozen replies, some of them very long and angry, which Jasper could have made to that, but he settled on the simplest, the one that would be most likely to conform to this vampire's idea of 'reasonable.'

'It never hurts to be prepared, does it?'

'Hurts to look as though you're spoiling for a fight.'

Jasper turned his eyes away, irritated. In many ways Carlisle was so easy to like – or would have been, in his soldier days perhaps, back when he had done _liking_ – he was patient, undemanding and a good sport – but now and again Jasper would encounter these strange, unshakable principles, these sudden points of contention and this exasperating _pacifist _attitude. What on Earth was any vampire supposed to do with that? And the way he was so _reasonable _about it, never getting into an argument over these views but refusing to be swayed from them either...didn't he feel any anger, any sense of unfairness at the hand fate had dealt him? Didn't he have any fight in him at all?

Jasper got to his feet as well, stretched, and then frowned. There was some sensation he was feeling, that he couldn't pin down, not the burn of thirst in his throat but something similar, related...suddenly it snapped back to him, in one of those brief bursts of human memory. Clattering in from a day's hard cavalry training, weak in every limb, smelling the dinner cooking in the kitchen and craving meat...of course! He had spent all morning fighting hard, and now he was hungry!

They had been hunting more frequently than he usually did, allowing him to get his hand in at catching deer. He could taste in now: fourteen days' worth of animal blood, dull as ditchwater on the back of his tongue. He threw back his head and closed his eyes, letting the air enter his nostrils in a long, slow stream. Fourteen days was long enough. It was time for a human feed.

Nothing nearby, but as he focussed he caught faint scents of human habitation; wood-smoke, cattle dung, hay cut and spread to dry. He opened his eyes and grinned, his mouth already watering in anticipation. He had been too preoccupied these past two weeks to give thirst or depression much more than a passing thought, he realised with satisfaction. Maybe this time he could drink some human blood and enjoy it.

He turned east, the direction of the scent, and put a foot forward, and a voice said:

'Jasper, where are you going?'

He nearly jumped out of his skin. It was silly, but he had forgotten Carlisle – as though anything that wasn't a danger wasn't worth remembering.

'To hunt,' he said vaguely.

Carlisle's voice was puzzled. 'We hunted the day before yesterday. I didn't think you would be –'

'I'm going to the human settlement,' he clarified. 'I'll meet you back here in a few hours if you don't want to come'

He headed off once more, moving from a walk into a smooth, fluid run – and skidded to an ungainly halt. Carlisle was standing between two trees, blocking his way.

'What – ?' he blurted.

'You're going to hunt humans?' Carlisle asked. There was a note of steel in his voice that Jasper had never heard before.

'Uh...' he was suddenly wrong-footed. 'Yes.'

'Why?'

Jasper made a disgusted sound. 'Because I'm thirsty! Why do you think?'

'But I thought you were doing well with the animals.'

'Look,' Jasper growled, 'what is it to you what kind of blood I drink?'

Carlisle was giving him a Look, and Jasper felt his whole body groan in resignation. He had been afraid of this.

'Jasper,' Carlisle said, 'if I had my way _no-one_ would drink human blood.'

'You're insane.'

'You're not the first to have said so, but that's not the point. The point is that I thought you agreed to join me and try being a vegetarian.'

'Look,' Jasper said, trying to interject some reason into the proceedings, 'you know why I decided I would be more comfortable living mainly on animal blood, but I don't propose to make it a full-time thing.'

'But you're not even struggling! Just going to hunt a human when you want to, it's –' He stopped.

'Go on,' Jasper said.

'It's wrong.'

'Wrong?' Jasper gave a snort of derisive laughter. 'Look, Carlisle. We hunt. Lots of things hunt. Humans eat animals. Bears and lions hunt deer, and they kill a human when they find one. So do we. And humans are our _natural prey_. If we kill them, that's just the way it is. Hell, humans even kill each other.'

'No. Some humans kill each other for the sake of it, and I'm sure you despised them in your human life as much as I did. When you were a soldier you fought in wars, but you didn't kill when you didn't need to, and we don't. Look at me.' He spread his hands. 'I don't need to. Animals are fine.'

Jasper grimaced. 'Animals are _not _fine.'

'They suffice! In the interests of preserving human life, it's a small sacrifice to make. Don't forget that we were human once –'

'Exactly!' Jasper burst out. 'And any one of those humans could become a vampire, and that vampire would go on to hunt humans just like every other! You're working with the assumption that humans are worth sparing, but they're all the same.'

'Maybe so.' Carlisle looked stricken, but he was still arguing. 'Maybe so, but Jasper, remember what being a newborn was like. Who could hold on to their humanity through that? If they had someone to teach them, if they just had a _chance – '_

'Oh, yes! A chance would be a fine thing, wouldn't it? But look, _Carlisle_.' He thrust his fist into a shaft of sunlight, and they both watched the sparkles shattering off his skin. 'That's what we are. We don't have a chance. Nobody really does.'

'So that's it?' Carlisle snapped, glaring. 'Life is futile?'

'Yes it is.'

'And where does that get one? Futile or not, we're alive, so we might as well make the most of it.'

'Exactly,' Jasper said tightly. 'Which is why I am going to go and drink some decent blood.'

He ducked around Carlisle, who made no move to stop him, and broke into a run.

* * *

As he ran, he seethed. Wasn't life hard enough without _delusional vampires _to contend with? Without depression and other covens and _vegetarianism _and...

Why did he have to be a vampire? It all boiled down to that. But Jasper had never been one for lamenting his fate. He set his teeth and let his instincts take over, zeroing in on the smell of the human settlement. He ran at full stretch, not wanting to spend all day traipsing from place to place. All the same, it was a good couple of hours before he passed the first sign of life: a well-worn track wending its way between the trees. Sunlight filtered down where the ground was clear, and he realised a flaw in his scheme: it was still broad daylight. He didn't like to hunt during the day if he could help it.

Well, there was nothing to be done. He would just have to make a quick grab, that was all. He passed a barn, surrounded with trails of warm human scent that set his throat cracking with thirst. He moved quickly, darting from one patch of shade to the next. Which trail to follow? He couldn't hear or smell anyone particularly close or practical to hunt...and then suddenly he froze.

Not mouth-watering but sharp and icy, triggering respect and fear. The scent of another immortal. Completely frozen, Jasper flared his nostrils once, twice...

Shudders were creeping up and down his spine. He could detect not one but three separate smells, all fresh. He didn't care what Carlisle said; this was still the south. He was on their hunting ground.

So what now? Get the hell out, or feed and _then _get the hell out?

He wasn't really thirsty, but _damn_, to get so close...

He straightened up, turned and froze. Standing in the doorway of the barn was a young girl.

She looked about fifteen, with tousled dark hair, regular-featured but not particularly striking, watching him steadily. She had surely seen him dashing around, sniffing the ground, and didn't look at all surprised, so she must be a vampire – unless she was insane. There was no fear in her, but no aggression or recognition either. She was standing in the shadow of the building, no sunlight on her skin, and her eyes were dark. Very dark.

He took a half-step forward. She didn't flinch, which probably meant there was at least one other behind her. A two-on-one fight against opponents of unknown strength and skill...unless, of course, she was the village madwoman. He strained forward, trying to catch her scent through the day-old trails filling his nose – and a scraping noise came from inside the barn.

That was enough for Jasper. The girl's head flicked round, and he bolted for the cover of the trees.

The comforting shadows enveloped him, but he didn't stop running. He had been on claimed territory. He had come face-to-face with one of the owners, in all probability. They could be pursuing him already, for all he knew. Or maybe he was overreacting, but if so, he didn't care. He ran.

_No blood today then._ He leapt twenty feet into the air, landing in the boughs of a tall spruce tree, and swung through the branches for a little way. _Never mind. Shake them off. _

None of his scent leading up into the tree, since he hadn't touched anything on the way up, and none on the ground for as long as he stayed up here. Good. Wouldn't want to lead them on to –

He froze in every muscle, missed his footing and fell. Ridiculous. One of his hands shot out without conscious instruction and caught hold of a branch, and he swung from it, feeling no strain, stunned.

Carlisle. Would he still be waiting when Jasper got back? And what if he wasn't?

Jasper dropped onto a broad branch and kept moving, but mindlessly now, thinking. Of course, Carlisle couldn't have gone that far in the time he'd been away, and it would be possible to track him down again, but what if the other vampire didn't want to travel with him any more? There wasn't much he could do about that, if so. And then what?

_You'd be rid of a damn nuisance, that's what._

_Rid of your only companion, too._

Something cold and icy and totally unexpected clutched at his heart when he thought those words. It was fear, he realised, but a totally different kind from the panic that had gripped him outside the barn. Despite the afternoon sunshine, the wood seemed to darken around him. It wasn't that he liked Carlisle so much, it was having company – any company – anyone who wouldn't treat him like a freak because of his aversion to hunting. He could feel the disgust and depression gnawing at the corners of his mind, threatening to engulf him without the flame of companionship to keep them away. Even fighting with Carlisle was better than that.

He took a very long route back to where he'd started. He told himself that he was trying to shake off possible pursuers, but in truth he was dreading the moment when he would have to enter the clearing where he'd left Carlisle, and see whether or not it was empty. He remembered exactly where it was, and when he got closer he could feel it like a sore or a headache on his right side, nagging at him as he circled round in a wide arc to approach from the opposite direction.

Twilight was darker under the trees than it would have been outside. He slipped between trees and reached the edge of the clearing. And there, on the far side, was a figure, sitting against a tree with its golden head on its knees.

'Carlisle!' he hissed.

Carlisle jolted half-upright in an instant, his eyes flying open in shock. 'Jasper!' he exclaimed. And then, leaning forward to look more closely, his face turning from startled to astonished, and then overjoyed, '_Jasper!_ You –' He darted across the clearing in a blindingly fast motion, one hand raised almost as though he were going to touch Jasper's face. Jasper had been too surprised to react to the rapid approach, but he leaned away from the hand, and Carlisle seemed to recall himself a little. 'You were a long time coming,' he said. 'Your eyes...'

Jasper realised. Of course, his eyes must be the same colour they had been when he had left. Carlisle could tell that he hadn't hunted.

'No, I...' He shrugged. 'Unsuccessful trip.'

'You didn't find a settlement?' Carlisle asked.

'Sure, I went all the way there, but –' _The territory had already been claimed_, he was about to say, but then he saw the expression on Carlisle's face. It was eager, almost desperately hopeful, and suddenly he thought, _why not humour him? I didn't hunt. He's a decent man; if it makes him happy...'_

'I changed my mind,' he said. 'I wasn't really very thirsty.'

'You did? I mean, you weren't?'

'No.'

'Mmm.' Carlisle frowned. 'You see, you're right, we are predators and humans are our prey...Lapses...are a part of what we are. But when we're not thirsty...well, animals are better.' He looked up and grinned, suddenly looking positively buoyant. 'I wasn't sure if you were coming back,' he said. 'You were a long time coming.'

'I took a long way round,' Jasper explained. 'I needed to think...'

'Of course.' Carlisle jogged back into the clearing. 'Well, what shall we do now? Stop here for the night, or move on?'

'Let's keep moving,' Jasper said decisively. The thought of that female vampire was still prickling him between the shoulder blades.

'Which way?' Carlisle asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Jasper felt like bursting out laughing. _Which way? _he thought. _Does it matter? We're damned whichever way we go, so why worry? _Out loud, he said,

'North.'

'Of course.' Carlisle spun round, with unerring sense of direction, turning his face towards the cloudy safety of the northern states. 'But may I suggest a detour?'

'What kind of detour?'

'A hunting detour. If you're tired of red deer, there's plenty of other options before resorting to humans. Mountain lions, grizzlies...smaller predators taste god too, if you can't find any big game...'

'You mean, there's animals that taste better than those herbivores?'

'Of course.'

'Alright.' Jasper felt a sudden, unexpected bubbling of enthusiasm. He hadn't felt like this for decades. 'Let's hunt!'

**A/N: So...that was a slightly inconsequential chapter. I intended to have a cliff-hanger at the end, leading into some actual plot and action in the next chapter, but I decided that they really need to do a little bit more actual interacting before they go all smooshy and intense. Only I'm drawing a bit of a blank, so does anybody have any ideas for a scene they would like to see between Carlisle and Jasper? Anything they could discuss? Chats about childhood? Life, the universe and everything (without resorting to arguments and attempted homicide)? Name your requests!**

**True**

**P.S. I found the awesomest fic about Jasper and Carlisle ever! It's not a slash like this one, but it's good! http:/ www . fanfiction . net/s/4982620/ 1 /And_Then_He_Took_My _Hand_ Part_2_Jasper**

**Take out the spaces. It's called **'And Then He Took My Hand'** and it's by an author called **hopesallthings**. Jasper's Texan accent is the sweetest thing ever! I'm not convinced by my Jasper-dialogue in this, mostly 'cos he doesn't speak much in the books anyway, so feedback would be appreciated!**

**I can't believe this is a PS.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**Disclaimer:** Stephanie Meyer created Twilight. I simply distilled it into its two most interesting characters and made it awesome :P

**A/N: So in this chapter there will be a bit of chatting and bonding and becoming acquainted and stuff (coz you have to do that before you can fall in love), but at the end there will be cliffhangers and PLOT! Yes, PLOT! *bursts into the Hallelujah Chorus* Well, you know, not **_**intricate**_** plot. But events, at least.**

**Heloooooo, sexyvamps!**

Jasper lay with his hands clasped behind his head, staring up at the canopy of leaves above him. They looked like elongated silver coins, flashing in the sun, delicate green when the wind turned them and showed their tops. Occasional winks of sunlight made it down into the green twilight beneath, glinting off his skin. For once, though, he didn't mind. He felt at peace. The mood was tenuous, fragile, as though it might break at any time, but it was there. He knew it was partly the feed. Four days ago they'd found a pair of bears and drained them. It had been wonderful: ten times more satisfying than deer, none of the painful emotions, and far more blood than one could ever get out of a human. He was so full that he felt almost sleepy, and not thirsty in the slightest.

But it was more than that, Jasper knew. It was Carlisle. His mood pervaded the whole area, free from greed, fear or anger, or any of those things that had been so universal in the South that he'd barely noticed them consciously. And the sadness and lethargy he had encountered when they'd first met was fading too, shaking off like snow off a spruce. In its absence Carlisle's mood was airy, hopeful, and, right now, profoundly peaceful. Jasper inhaled deeply, as though he could breathe it in. He hadn't felt this relaxed since –

Well, since ever, really.

'You seem more cheerful,' he said to the leafy canopy.

'Yes,' Carlisle agreed. 'It's nice to have company.'

That was true enough. Jasper twisted his head to the side to look at Carlisle. The other vampire was also lying on his back, a little way off, eyes closed and arms spread out, palms turned up towards the sun. He looked more at ease than Jasper could ever hope to be, even here, and for once Jasper didn't despise his lack of caution. Instead, he envied it. What would it be like, to be able to completely let your guard down like that, with no fear of attack – even with a vicious Southerner lying right next to you? Maybe it wasn't stupid. Maybe it would be worth dying, if you could experience peace like that while you were alive. Carlisle's head was lying in a patch of sunlight, and rainbow reflections danced on the tree trunks around him. Jasper had instinctively stuck to the shadows.

He rolled his head back and stared straight up once again. He realised that Carlisle probably knew, or could guess, more about his past than he knew about Carlisle's. Jasper was just another horror story from the South. What had Carlisle been through to gain his quiet sorrow, his complete lack of fighting skills and his total, unthinking confidence?

'Carlisle?' he said. He didn't often use the other vampire's name – who else could he be talking to, after all? – and so Carlisle's mood was a little more alert as he answered.

'Yes?'

'How did you come to spend time with the Volturi? I mean – no offence, but I thought they picked fighters with gifts. And that they were quite selective.'

'That's true,' Carlisle agreed, 'but they weren't always the elite fighting force you know now.' He paused, as though gathering his thoughts for an explanation. 'Have you ever heard of the Romanians?' he asked.

'Nope.'

'Not many people have, but they once controlled the whole of Eastern Europe. Now, of course, they're almost completely forgotten; the Volturi's control extends over most of the planet, and nobody wonders what came before.

'Anyway, a short while – in vampire terms, of course – before I was created, the Volturi controlled Italy and several other European countries, but the rest of the world was much more divided. There were the Romanians, as I told you, and for all I know other covens in other countries. But the Romanians are the only ones I know anything about. They were powerful, cruel, cunning. But they were too satisfied with their power; they sat on their thrones, content to rule the territory they considered to be theirs without challenge. They never gave a thought to their neighbours in the West. But the Volturi were power-hungry, and much more strategic.' He paused. 'Have you ever seen two of the guard named Jane and Alec?'

'Nobody's _seen_ the Volturi, Carlisle,' Jasper said. 'If you've seen them, you're dead.' There was a pause. 'But I've heard.'

Carlisle nodded. 'The Volturi had been building up a guard of strong, and in some cases gifted, fighters, as you said,' he continued. 'But it was not until they found Jane and Alec that they had the power they needed. They took the Romanians thoroughly by surprise, and once they controlled the whole of Europe they had the power base they needed. But the point is that even though they were looking to extend their control by the time I came on the scene, they were still a much smaller organisation than the one we know today. Of late they have become...well, rather obsessed with maintaining their power and reputation, but in the beginning it was only a means to allow them to get the best of what they wanted – not only blood, but exotic scenery, fine art, entertainment and conversation. And you also have to remember how many of our kind lived then. Belief in vampires was much more widespread, so many of us lived on the outskirts, as hunters, savages. A vampire who was...well, educated and civilised, was quite a rare occurrence. A nomad passing through Volterra would often be given an audience, and Aro took a liking to me. I think he found me something of a curiosity, in truth, but we had many enjoyable discussions about other things than our respective eating habits. It's strange, really...' His voice took on a musing tone. 'In another life, I would have utterly condemned him for the life he led, but when one is...like us, it's different. You definitely can't be so choosy. Just meeting someone who thought of things other than blood and hunting...I felt more at home. For a while.'

'Why did you leave?' Jasper asked. 'It seems to me you were in a pretty good situation.'

'Well, yes, but in the end their lack of understanding...it was too much. The way they would ferry in a whole crowd of humans every few weeks, far more than they needed. I would go out hunting from time to time, and it always took me a couple of days to get beyond the limits of the city and into wild country, where I could find prey. I would arrive back, and Jane would meet me at the door and call, "Aro, Doctor Cullen is back." And Aro would come out, see the colour of my eyes and tut at me. "Carlisle, I don't understand this aversion you have to your natural food source! It's not healthy to deprive yourself this way; it will catch up to you eventually, my friend!" ' Carlisle shook his head. 'It hasn't, yet,' he remarked. 'But anyway, Aro wouldn't understand. He couldn't see why I didn't just hunt the way the rest of them did, or, if I was so lonely, why I didn't change a companion for myself. He wrote to me once, when I was settled, teaching in Virginia. "You should see the way they live in the South, Carlisle! A new consort every other minute!" ' He sighed. 'Eventually I'd had enough. I decided to leave. And Jane had never liked me. She resented that I spent so much time with Aro, I think, when I did nothing to contribute to the Volturi's position. She was very keen on power. And so was Caius. As the coven's strength increased, I felt more and more out of place. Leaving was the best thing. I do believe that Aro was truly sorry to see me go, but he is very old. Who really understands the way he sees the world?'

'And then what?'

'I wandered. Taught, worked in hospitals, made a friend here and there. Some quite good friends, in the North. But nothing really seems significant. Nothing sticks.' He sighed. The atmosphere had taken a shift, turning towards melancholy once again. 'I never met another vampire like myself,' he said. 'It saddens me that it's so rare.'

'From what you've told me of the Northern covens,' Jasper said, 'I'm surprised that more vampires don't think the way you do. But if you'd been brought up in the South –' He grimaced, memories of his early days, the fighting and the terror and the blood, rising up strongly inside him for a moment. 'You don't understand what I am,' he half-whispered.

'What do you mean?'

'You pretend that you're human. But if you'd been created for an army, if you'd lived by the blood, you'd have a monster inside you. You'd be terrified of it. You'd be terrified of yourself. In a calm moment like this, you'd feel like you were balancing. Not really stable at all.'

'Really?' Jasper wanted to laugh at the tone of polite interest compared to his statement. 'You seem fairly in-control to me.'

Jasper smiled faintly. 'I still know how to act.'

'I do understand though, I think,' Carlisle said. 'Don't be incredulous; we've all undergone the transformation. Waking up, smelling the humans clearly for the first time and finding your...your very _self_ drowned in the instinct to hunt and kill them...seeing your reflection and realising that you're one of the demons you were hunting before –'

'Wait,' Jasper cut him off. '_Hunting_?'

'Yes. My father was a clergyman. It was at that time that witch-hunts and such were in vogue.'

Jasper sat up sharply on one elbow. 'You _hunted_ vampires when you were still _human_?'

Only a third of Carlisle's face was visible from this angle, but Jasper could still see the corner of his eye crinkling into a smile. 'I didn't know what I was about,' he said, in a shrugging sort of voice. 'I didn't really believe they'd turn out to be anything but a group of frightened humans when we caught them.'

'But still.' Jasper shook his head. 'That's...that's _bad_.'

Carlisle chuckled. 'Is it? Anyway, I got rather more than I had bargained for. The transformation was...not fun.'

'But you always knew what you wanted,' Jasper said, sobering a little. 'From the beginning, you tried not to kill humans. You had that.'

'Yes,' Carlisle agreed, closing his eyes once more. 'I had that.'

Jasper settled on his back once more, tasting the emotions in the air. There was a constancy in Carlisle, a certainty. No doubt, even when there was misery and pain. And now, burning more strongly than ever, hope. He thought that Jasper had chosen not to hunt that time a few days ago. He was hoping that he had found a companion at last.

Jasper shifted uneasily. He didn't like being pinned down in this way. But the hunting trip was starting to feel less like a failure and more like a second chance. Jasper frowned. Did he want a second chance? Supposing he _had_ chosen not to feed, _had_ committed himself to Carlisle's vision? Because that girl had scared him out of the village, he still could.

Why worry now? Slowly, Jasper let his eyes fall shut. His shoulders were rigid with automatic tension, but he tried to relax, focussing on the rich, earthy smell of the forest, and Carlisle's steady breathing. The wind parted the leaves above him, and sunlight shafted down onto his face. His eyelids glowed, not red – no blood in his tissues – but pale pink. When was the last time he'd lain back like this, and let the sun warm his face? He breathed deeply. This was good. No obligation, no guilt, no danger...

The breeze gusted round, coming in from the north, filling his nostrils with new scents. And Jasper stiffened, gasped, and leapt to his feet.

'Jasper, what is it?' Carlisle was alert in an instant, half sitting, one hand braced on the ground in readiness to push him upright.

'Other vampires,' Jasper hissed, instinctively dropping his voice to a low growl that wouldn't carry. 'I smelt them. They're close! Dammit -!' He lashed out at the empty air with one fist. How had he let his guard down? How?

'Jasper, calm down,' Carlisle said in measured tones. 'You don't know that these are going to be enemies. We are doing no harm. Let's just be ready.'

'Right.' Jasper pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing deeply. They had been heading steadily north for days. Carlisle had promised him that nomadic covens in the north passed each other without mishap all the time. He was overreacting. But every instinct screamed panic to him. He had caught at least two separate smells, which meant that – Carlisle being as good as nothing in a fight – he was outnumbered. And there was no point in running. He could now hear sounds of passage, and they sounded swift and purposeful. The approaching vampires must have smelt them; the prevailing wind had been blowing his and Carlisle's scent in their direction all morning. Jasper bit back a curse and turned to Carlisle. The other vampire had positioned himself in the clearest patch between the trees, in full view. His stance was cautious but not aggressive, his expression calm. _That's right_, Jasper thought._ Act like a Northerner. Try not to look like a psychotic war veteran who would kill them as soon as look at them, and maybe they won't be provoked_. He rubbed a hand uneasily over the scars on his arm, wishing he could do something to make his history more inconspicuous, and then another thought came to him.

'Carlisle,' he asked, 'what colour are my eyes?'

Carlisle glanced at him swiftly. 'Deep amber,' he said. 'Nowhere near yellow.'

'But not red?'

'No, not red. Definitely not red.'

Jasper gave a tight smile. _Not red_.

Perfect.

**A/N: GUESS who is coming! GUESS, I say! It gives me feelings of power! Cyber-cookie and special mention for the person who guesses right!**

**OK, I know, lots of irrelevant rambling. If you just skipped to the end and are reading this A/N, the last couple of paragraphs are all you really need for the plot. I just thought they should have another meaningful conversation that wasn't either a fight or decision-making re: shall we hang out together for a while. **

**But next chapter there will be action, if I can figure out how to write it.**

**J: **Thanks for the review, I'm glad you like Watership Down. Alice...don't ask awkward questions, OK! I suppose I could include her if everybody clamours for a miserable, angsty, lonely end for Carlisle...

**REVIEW! FEEEEEEEEEDBACK!**

**True xxx**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**A/N: I'm baaaaaaack! Yes, I know it's been a hideously long time, but I just had no idea how to write the really, really awkward scene that's going to come next. **

They came gliding swiftly between the trees: three of them, expressions wary, hands ready, eyes trained on Jasper and Carlisle. Trying to read the situation, Jasper decided that they were probably mates. The male was lean and rangy, with blond hair tied back in a ponytail and a few days' worth of stubble on his chin. He would never have known, on the morning when he woke up for the last time and decided not to shave, that he would be keeping those beginnings of a beard for the rest of his existence. His eyes were deep burgundy and slightly sardonic. His companion – mate – was full-lipped and proud-eyed, her white skin rendered even paler by the tumble of flame-auburn hair surrounding her face. The last had to be a tag-along, following them out of convenience. Jasper stood a little behind Carlisle, his stance carefully neutral, and took in his first sight of Northern vampires. Physically they were exactly what Carlisle had described – the only scars he could see were a couple of rings of toothmarks on the forearm of the leading male and a silvery line across the woman's cheek, and no snarling newborns appeared behind them. Travelling with just two other people in the South was unheard of, unless one was defeated and fleeing. But the emotions he felt from them were just as wary and calculating as he would have expected.

Maybe Carlisle's cheerful chance meetings existed in the far North, but this wasn't it. He didn't trust these vampires one bit.

There was a pause as the two vampires halted and stared at Jasper and Carlisle, sizing them up. Jasper slowly curled and uncurled his fingers, trying to control his feelings as the tension mounted. Then Carlisle drew an audible breath and stepped forward.

'I am pleased to meet you,' he said, spreading his arms in a gesture that simultaneously conveyed welcome and showed his hands to be empty and unthreatening. 'Ah – my name is Carlisle, and my companion is Jasper. Do we find ourselves in your territory?'

The leading male vampire blinked, then relaxed and answered.

'No, we were just passing through.'

'Nomads, like ourselves?' Carlisle was clearly about to strike up a pleasant conversation, but somehow Jasper couldn't keep his mouth shut.

'Heading South?' he asked.

An innocuous enough question, but one laden with implications. And Jasper's tone made it clear that he intended every implication to be felt.

The other vampire looked at him coldly. 'Yes,' he said.

'We had heard that things were becoming quieter,' the female said. She had a high voice which was currently as soft and cold as winter snow. She glared at Jasper, and he could sense that her feelings for her mate must be very strong, and that she was angry with Jasper for his implied insult. 'Some places up North are getting a little crowded with people trying to avoid any fighting.'

'Things getting quieter, huh?' Jasper echoed. 'Did a Southerner tell you that? Well, maybe it is.' He paused. 'By our standards.'

And he had just admitted to being from the South. Wonderful. Beside him, he could sense waves of anxiety rolling off Carlisle, mingled with exasperation. The second emotion might once have made him angry, but right now he found it endearing. He was ruining Carlisle's diplomatic introductions.

But now the second male stepped forward with a warm smile.

'Our James is indefatigable,' he said, laying a hand on the first vampire's shoulder. 'What with the situation in the South being so unstable, everybody in the North treads on eggshells when they meet, and he's tired of it. He is dragging us down into more challenging territory and you…' he ran an eye over Jasper and Carlisle… 'it seems you are dragging this one up away from it.'

'Yes,' Carlisle agreed. 'We only recently met, actually, but from what I've gathered it seems he has been in a scrap or two. We are in search of somewhere a little more peaceful.' He smiled two, and turned to the first vampire. 'James, I believe you were called?' he said. 'Allow me to introduce myself and my companion, and please forgive me for not doing so before. I am called Carlisle, and this is Jasper.'

'That's right; I am called James,' the other vampire said, and then suddenly he smiled widely. Jasper stared. He couldn't feel any change in the vampire's – James' – emotions, but suddenly his whole demeanour was warm and friendly. 'My companions are called Victoria and Laurent.'

'Laurent?' Carlisle asked. 'You must be from France!'

'Yes,' Laurent agreed, smiling. 'And I think, by your accent, that you are from England?'

'Yes,' Carlisle admitted. 'I never did quite manage to adopt the American way of speaking. I studied in your country of birth for quite some time, you know. And you, James? America?'

'Canada.'

Carlisle shook his head apologetically. 'Frightfully sorry. I really should have learned the difference in accent by now, but it still escapes me.'

James showed, by a solicitous gesture of the hand, that it was quite alright.

Ten minutes later, they were seated in a ring in the middle of the clearing, talking pleasantly. Carlisle had completely ignored Jasper's lack of enthusiasm. Maybe he should have been more vocal in his complaints – he tended to forget that not everybody could read emotions – but then again, what could he have said? He had no reasonable objection. Laurent seemed as diplomatic as Carlisle himself. Carlisle and James were chatting away like old friends, comparing their lives as nomads around America. The woman hadn't said much, but she hadn't done anything to make him dislike her either. Maybe he was just being a prejudiced, hung-up Southerner.

Jasper shook his head. He didn't like these vampires. Laurent's smile was empty. Jasper could tell that all his decisions would be made with the same aim that made him follow this coven; convenience. James' feelings didn't match his words. He was laughing with Carlisle now, swapping stories of encounters with French Canadians while Laurent feigned outrage beside him, but his emotions were cold, conniving, calculating…but calculating _what_? Meanwhile, the woman was as fierce and as featureless as a piece of hot metal. All Jasper could get of her was hostility and devotion to the male at her side. But then, he thought gloomily, maybe he was being paranoid. After all, those things were fairly typical of vampires. Wariness, analysis, obsession. That was what drove them. He just didn't like vampires much, that was the truth of it. Ironic, since he was one of them. But then again, he didn't much like himself.

'How were you changed?' James was asking.

'I was about twenty-three,' Carlisle answered. He seemed to have relaxed beyond mere courtesy; his smile was genuine. Jasper gritted his teeth. 'My father sent me out witch-hunting. "Son," he said, "bring back a vampire." I don't think he was anticipating that I would _be _ the vampire.'

'You hunted vampires while you were still human?' James exclaimed. Something shot through Jasper, and he realised that he was jealous. _He_ had asked Carlisle that question right before these other vampires arrived. Was Carlisle about to have exactly the same conversation with a complete stranger that he had just had with Jasper? Did he go around spilling his guts to every vampire he met who was patient enough to listen?

Actually, considering his loneliness, that seemed very probable.

He missed Carlisle's response in the midst of his own thoughts, but whatever it was, it made both him and James laugh exuberantly, while Laurent chuckled more quietly and Victoria's lips twitched. And then, in the midst of his laughter, James' hand came down on Carlisle's leg.

Jasper's mouth fell open. His eyes flashed to James' face. Was he reading too much into it? Carlisle certainly didn't seem to have noticed anything amiss; he showed his customary lack of concern at having potentially dangerous vampires hanging on to parts of his body. Naïve fool…but James' expression made Jasper sure he wasn't imagining things. He looked straight into Carlisle's face as Carlisle began to speak again, and, as he listened, his eyes slid slowly down Carlisle's neck and shoulder to his bare forearm. Jasper pulled his mouth shut, as bewildered as he was – inexplicably – furious. Didn't James have a mate? There was no guilt or confusion in him, just interest…thoughtfulness…maybe a little amusement…it puzzled Jasper. Was this the way vampires did love? He didn't know.

He turned, looking into the red-head's face instead. He was sure her first feelings had been those of a mate. Wasn't she jealous? By his experience, she ought to have been tearing Carlisle apart by now. She was watching him and James talk even more raptly than she was – Jasper noticed how most of the conversation had died away, just him, Victoria and Laurent listening while James and Carlisle spoke more and more exclusively to one another – and there didn't seem to be anything coming from her except the same obsessive focus and a wary antagonism much like his own. He dug deeper. Ah yes, there was something…a little taste of bitter resignation, carefully supressed. But what was this? Jasper grappled with his past experience, struggling to comprehend. He had never heard of a vampire cheating on his mate before.

Then Victoria turned to meet his look. She stared hard into his face for a moment, and suddenly Jasper felt that, despite her clear hostility, they understood one another better than anyone else in the clearing. Which was odd, since he didn't really understand himself. But, when they turned back to watch James and Carlisle, Jasper could almost hear their mutual sigh of impatience.

James had shifted so that they were touching and shoulder and knee; he was moving his hand to illustrate some point he was making. Jasper snapped his eyes to Carlisle's face, trying to see if he was in on it too. _What was the point_, Jasper wondered, _of begging me to join his vegetarian lifestyle, if he's going to take up with the first new vampire who comes along…?_ He supposed that in theory there was no reason why all five of them couldn't join together, but…he didn't want to. James was like a stone underfoot, twisting; Jasper didn't trust him an inch. But Carlisle was still as open as ever. Watching him, Jasper was sure that he wasn't flirting; his face was open and engaged, nothing more. _Oblivious fool_. Couldn't he see how James was looking up at him from beneath his eyelashes, laughing unduly at every triflingly witty remark? Now that he came to think of it, it seemed out of character for Carlisle not to notice that the rest of them were being thoroughly left out of the conversation, even though Jasper had never seen him interact with others before. James must have captured his attention very strongly indeed. _Slick bastard_, he found himself thinking angrily. What was going on beyond that wide, affected smile? Then James' hand brushed Carlisle's as he spoke, and Jasper let out a hiss.

James paused, going quite still, and then turned slowly to look at him. Jasper felt the tiny hairs on the back of his neck and hands standing up. James put his head a little on one side, and at last his expression seemed to match up to the emotions Jasper could sense. _Conniving_. But what was he after?

Laurent, who a moment ago had seemed completely bored, looked up. His face was suddenly taught, wary.

'James?' he said.

Every nerve in Jasper's body was jangling.

Carlisle leaned forward. 'I'm sorry,' he said, his polite tone thoroughly out of keeping with their three-way staring match. 'My companion sometimes finds it hard to be around strangers. I hope you will not –'

James turned back to face him. Jasper couldn't see the look he gave Carlisle, but it was enough to make the smile slide off Carlisle's face like water off feathers.

'James,' Laurent said again.

James lunged for Carlisle's throat.

Laurent's instinctive reaction was exactly what Jasper had expected. He flung himself backwards away from the fight. No loyalty there. But Victoria surprised him. Though James' attack seemed to be without rhyme or reason, she leapt instantly into the fray.

She astonished Jasper only slightly less than he astonished himself.

As she moved, he moved, skidding to a halt almost at the feet of the two struggling males, putting himself between them and her. Victoria crashed right into him, and he seized her by the arm and waist, flinging her away from him as far as he could. He had to get her out of the fight for a moment, because he could tell without even looking that Carlisle was going to need him.

The fighting instinct Jasper had been trying to tap into in their practises was wide awake, but there was no way he was going to make a match for a practised fighter. He was struggling fiercely, head thrown back, one hand twisted in James' hair and the other clawing at his shoulder as James lunged for his throat. Jasper grabbed James from behind and dragged him backwards; there was a horrible screeching sound as his locked teeth clean through stony flesh. Carlisle stumbled as James was pulled off him, one hand going to the side of his neck where the ragged wound had just been torn; he was wild-eyed, his shirt in ribbons. For a second Jasper had the upper hand; he had both arms around James, locked in place. Then Victoria came pelting at him from the side.

_Fool!_ Jasper felt like screaming as he threw himself to the ground and slipped from between them. _God-damned idiot! _Refuse_ to learn to fight, drag us into consorting with crazy Northerners and then leave me to clean up your mess!_ He thought he could handle a two on one fight, but if Laurent joined in they were done for.

He kept in front of Carlisle. Victoria came at him again. She was vicious, all teeth and nails, but reckless. He was the stronger; he dodged her savage attack and landed a heel in her gut, knocking her backwards and whirling as James struck at his other flank. He would have to finish this quickly. James went for his face: fast, cruel, cunning. Jasper let all his skill in fighting flood him. He _snarled_, _snapped _when the hands came at him; the resistance of skin and bone was exhilarating against his teeth; he got a hold on James, twisted, smashed an elbow to his face. James was knocked clean to the ground; he rolled to his feet, more of a scramble than a spring. Jasper roared. He was ready for James' next attack, seeing it almost before it happened – and so, when it didn't happen, he felt for a moment as though he had gone blind.

The fight seemed to stop with a physical lurch. Laurent had pinned James' arms to his sides and was holding him back.

'Victoria!' he barked. The female had looked ready to fling herself at Jasper again without support, but at Laurent's shout she stopped, hissing.

Jasper could hear Carlisle panting behind him. He crouched and spread his hands, snarling softly and with all the menace he could muster. Laurent looked nakedly terrified: of him, but also of James. Jasper noticed that he had only intervened when James had lost the upper hand – when Laurent could claim to have saved him from being killed by a more dangerous fighter. Jasper stared at James, wide-eyed behind his snarl. What _was_ he?

'I'm sorry,' Laurent whispered. Jasper growled again and leaned forward; Laurent pulled James a corresponding step back. 'He will not attack again. Please, there is no need…'

Jasper felt a hand on his shoulder and whirled with a roar. He found himself face-to-face with Carlisle. The other vampire was breathing through his teeth, and still had a hand pressed to his bite wound, yet somehow his face was still free of the stress and savagery that were marking all theirs to some extent. He still looked _human_.

'Jasper…' he said.

Jasper knocked his hand away with force that would have broken a human finger.

'Don't tell me what to _do_!' he snarled.

'We'll leave now,' Laurent breathed. 'Let us go our separate ways in peace.'

'_Peace_?' Jasper shrieked. 'Give me one reason why I shouldn't slaughter him now!'

'If you tried,' Victoria said, 'you would be killed yourself!' She slid into a crouch in front of James and Laurent, mirroring Jasper's protective stance.

Jasper sighed. He knew that he couldn't kill all three with them; certainly not while keeping himself between them and Carlisle. There was no choice, really.

'We will remain in this clearing,' he said. 'I must attend to my companion. It is you who will go on your way, Laurent, and if I can still smell your foul coven on the wind within the next hour, I will kill you all. Now get out of here. Run _fast_.' He added a little pulse of fear at the end of his statement, and Laurent jumped another step backwards, releasing James.

'We will go,' he said. 'We will leave at once, I promise you.' He swallowed, beginning to back away steadily. 'Come, Victoria, James. _James_.'

James was standing where Laurent had left him. He stared straight into Jasper's eyes with an expression of smug satisfaction, as though he was thoroughly pleased with what had happened. As though he had somehow won against Jasper, despite the fact that Jasper had been about to wipe the floor with him. Jasper gave another low growl, and James laughed softly. Jasper's growl rose and became a furious snarl.

One corner of James' mouth pulled up in a smirk, and he slung an arm around Victoria's shoulders and began to saunter after Laurent. Victoria turned her face coldly away from him, glancing over her shoulder to send Jasper and Carlisle a look of pure loathing. Anger, then, but no shift in loyalty. She turned away, falling into step with James.

Venom welled in Jasper's mouth. He wanted nothing more than to launch himself at their retreating backs.

He didn't relax until he could no longer hear the sound of their footfalls. Then he straightened up with a deep sigh.

'Jasper…' Carlisle said. Jasper turned and hit him hard across the face.

'Idiot!' he shouted.

Carlisle stumbled backwards. 'Jasper –'

Jasper grabbed his shoulders, pushing him backwards. 'What do you think you were _doing_?' He slammed Carlisle back against a thick oak tree on the last word.

'Would you calm down?' Carlisle snapped a little, pushing Jasper's hand away. Jasper slapped his hand down and shoved him backwards again. 'You don't get it, do you? You can't be indignant and tell me that my behaviour is a bit off. _I could kill you_.'

'Why would you kill me?' Carlisle asked, and Jasper was struck again by his ability to stand up for himself. Just not physically. He wasn't a fighter, but he was no coward either, Jasper had to grudgingly admit. 'You just risked your life trying to save me.'

Jasper sighed, cooling down just a little. 'Alright,' he grunted. 'Fair point. In this particular case there's no point in me killing you but…but _wake up_. We're not humans, alright, whatever you try to pretend. We don't have policemen, we don't have laws, we don't have gods. We just have our teeth. So _learn_ to _use yours_. And don't get into conversations with strange vampires.'

'Look,' Carlisle sighed, tugging Jasper's hand off his shoulder again, 'your experience has taught you to mistrust other vampires, and I respect that, but_ my_ experience has taught me that when you meet nomads you should be polite and friendly. And they _were_ nomads. They came from the North. Honestly, have _you_ ever seen anything like that before?'

'No,' Jasper admitted. 'I have no idea why they attacked. I could have told you they were bad news though.'

'Could you?' Carlisle met his eyes properly for the first time. 'Jasper, I would have listened to you if you had told me you didn't want to linger, you know.'

'I was telling you the whole time!'

'What? No you weren't.'

Jasper huffed. 'Oh yeah. I forgot you can't read emotions. I really, really didn't like them. It was instinctive.'

'I didn't much like the look of them to begin with either, but James became so friendly after the first few moments. It is only natural for our kind to mistrust one another a little at first, after all…'

'Mmm.' Jasper frowned. 'He liked you.'

Carlisle looked down at himself. 'He bit me.'

Jasper pulled himself together and turned brisk. 'I've got to look at those,' he said. 'Sit down.'

Carlisle slid down the tree so that he was sitting at its base with his back against the trunk, and Jasper crouched down facing him. He reached forward – carefully, because he was used to being bitten for his pains when he had tried to attend to injured newborns – and pulled the shredded fabric of his shirt aside to examine his shoulder.

'This shirt is fairly well ruined, at any rate,' Carlisle said. The right-hand side and body were holding together fairly well, but the left shoulder was rent with tooth- and nail-marks. 'I will have to obtain another one from somewhere before we can show our faces in public again.'

Jasper wanted to ask what the hell it mattered, but instead he found himself carefully undoing the buttons instead of just ripping it as he normally would have done. He pulled the side of the shirt away to inspect the damage. There were white nail-scrapes all down Carlisle's flanks and across his belly, but nothing that had broken the skin; it was his chest and shoulder on the left side that had taken the worst of it. Jasper probed the bites carefully with his fingers, then tilted Carlisle's head back to examine the wound at his throat. Carlisle hissed a little as the movement stretched the skin. Clearly the venom was starting to sting.

'Wow,' Jasper said, grinning. 'People won't wonder what you're doing in company with a ruffian like me anymore. It's just a shame he didn't mark your face at all.'

Carlisle gave a tense chuckle.

'What a mess,' Jasper muttered. 'He really got his teeth into you, didn't he? Well, looks like they were mostly clean in-and-out, apart from this one on your neck where I pulled him off you. Sorry about that. Ripped a bit.'

'I'll live.'

'Worse luck,' Jasper sighed philosophically. 'Sorry, just thinking out loud. Maybe you quite enjoy life; I don't know. Anyway, you'll get a bit of a raised scar there, I should think. The rest of them'll just leave white marks. Right, I'm going to try and suck some of the venom out now.'

'Does that actually help?' Carlisle asked, and Jasper guessed that he was trying to keep himself distracted from the pain.

'Seeing that our mouths are already full of venom?' Jasper said, tipping Carlisle's head carefully back again. 'I think so…if there's a higher concentration of venom in the wound than in your mouth, or something, because you always produce more when you're fighting…who knows? It feels like it helps though. Takes your mind off it.'

He pressed his lips down on the worst bite. Carlisle's breath caught, and Jasper couldn't blame him. It was only natural to feel a little nervous about mouths near the jugular after an experience like that. _Well_, he thought, smiling a little, _better late than never._

He sucked hard for a few seconds, trying to keep any venom he himself was producing at the back of his mouth, sucking poison _out_ rather than putting more _in._

'Better?' he asked.

'Um…I think so…'

Jasper patted him on the shoulder and sucked again. He was feeling much calmer, letting his mind come down from the high of fighting and bend to the quiet task of helping a comrade. All the same, the point between his shoulder blades was starting to itch.

'Watch my back, will you?' he asked, and Carlisle laughed quietly. He felt remarkably calm, all things considered, and rather than infuriating Jasper, it soothed him. He brushed Carlisle's hair, trying to calm him further so that he could pick it up second-hand. He breathed in deeply against his neck, ignoring the smell of vampire, which made him feel nervous and sick to his stomach, and focussing on the parts that were purely Carlisle.

'Idiot,' he muttered again, moving to Carlisle's collarbone. Some of the bite-marks were already starting to seal up on the surface, and Jasper knew he would have to work quickly. He knew what it was like to have a cut close with venom still inside it. He'd scratched some open again himself in the past, and he didn't much feel like a night spent sitting on Carlisle's hands, though when he thought about it he couldn't come up with anything better to do with his time.

'What have I done?' Carlisle sighed.

'Oh, you just are. I can't believe you never contemplate killing me, ever.'

'What would be in it for me?' Carlisle asked, making his voice deliberately baffled.

Jasper shrugged. 'Dunno.'

'Far more trouble than it's worth, I'd say, having seen you fight today.' Carlisle sucked in his breath as Jasper turned his attention to a particularly deep bite. There was a moment's silence, and then he spoke again. 'Ah, Jasper?'

'Mm-hm?'

'I'd like to…thank you, for, you know, er, leaping to my defence.'

'Oh. Huh. You're welcome, I suppose.' Jasper thought Carlisle sounded overly awkward, but then again, perhaps they were rather closely intertwined by English standards.

'Honestly, thank you. You were very prompt.'

'Years of practise.'

'Mmm. I wasn't sure if you would, you know, seeing that you seem to find me a lot of trouble.'

'You _are_ a lot of trouble,' Jasper agreed, placing a hand on Carlisle's flank to steady himself as he moved lower down his chest, 'but it's not as if I have anything better to do with my life than look after you.' Carlisle took a rather unsteady breath. 'Pain getting to you?'

'I'm sorry? Oh, no, not really…stings a little.'

'I know,' Jasper said with a sympathetic grimace, and looked up at Carlisle…straight into his eyes.

Ever since he had joined Carlisle, they had been hunting almost every day, to get Jasper's hand in and, he suspected, to stop him from getting thirsty so that he wouldn't be tempted to revert to human blood. His eyes had been turning slowly from red to amber, and Carlisle's had remained bright, buttery gold.

Until the bears. They had provided a rich, satisfying feed, and for several days they had gone without hunting. And now Carlisle's eyes were a colour he had never seen them before: a deep golden-brown, darkening in the middle like toffee.

Jasper stared into them, and memories hit him with the force of a flash-flood. Copper pans, the smell of burnt sugar, fingers singed on hot metal. Living as a child on his parents' farm, making toffee in the kitchen with his mother and his friends and…had there been a brother or sister? He couldn't remember.

He sucked in his breath. Fallen pears fermenting in the summer heat, saddle-soap on leather. And then somehow his hand was round the back of Carlisle's neck, and he was kissing him as though he could never let him go.

'What the –'

He was aware that somewhere outside his haze Carlisle was struggling, trying to pull away. It was so out of step with his own mood that he ignored it.

'Carlisle…' he groaned, kissing messily, open-mouthed to gasp in his scent, winding a hand into his bright gold unstained hair –

'_Jasper_.' Hands planted themselves squarely against his chest and pushed; forced away from Carlisle's lips, Jasper shook his head blearily, trying to make sense of him, and, more to the point, himself.

'I…' Carlisle wore an expression which was trying to be indignant but kept lapsing into bewildered. '_What_?'

'I…' Jasper faltered, 'I don't…' His hand was still in Carlisle's hair. He brought it down to rest against his cheek, which, he was pleased to discover, felt like the right thing to do. He gazed into Carlisle's face. The hair and eyes reminded him of melting butter and made him feel the same way. 'You're beautiful,' he said without thinking.

'Jasper, please.' Carlisle pushed his hand away and stood up, pulling his shirt around himself and moving away. Jasper's mind gave a lurch and managed to catch up.

'You're…you're angry?' he asked, getting up too and turning round.

'No, no, I'm not angry.' Carlisle shook his head, pushing his hair back distractedly. 'It's…it's such a little thing, really.'

'Carlisle,' Jasper said again. He hadn't intended any particular intonation, but it must have come out a little too heated, because Carlisle took a step backwards and hunched his shoulders defensively.

'I'm sorry if I have misjudged the situation,' he said stiffly. 'I did not realise that you were…that you…'

'Me neither,' Jasper said with a slightly hysterical laugh. 'But Carlisle…' He reached out a hand.

'Stop.'

Jasper sighed. 'I thought you wanted to travel together,' he said.

'As companions!'

'We're vampires. We're already damned, if that's what you're worried about; does it make that much difference?'

'It's not something I'm comfortable with!' Carlisle snapped, turning away. He walked briskly down the clearing away from Jasper, though Jasper knew he would be back before long. And didn't that sum it up perfectly? In the end, none of their kind could get away from the things they wanted to escape, because when you were immortal and damned-nigh invincible, the world became so terribly small.

He slumped back against the tree with a frustrated sigh. It seemed to him that nothing had changed, except perhaps for the worst. He liked – _liked_, if that was the word – Carlisle Cullen, many times more than he had done, but he was more angry with him than he had been before as well, so he supposed it all balanced out. And more than that, he was doubly furious with himself. _First the inability to eat humans_, he thought angrily, _and now the inability to fall for a suitable vampire. What is wrong with me?_

**A/N: *Is a massive Carlisle fangirl* Haha, it was James! I'm afraid Carlisle is going to get chewed up an awful lot in this fic, because that's how I like to treat the boys I'm a fan of. As of right now, he's all twitchy about Jasper kissing him because he's a Christian and stuff. I don't mean to imply that all Christians are homophobic (heck, I'm a Christian and I'm writing this); I just think that at the time Carlisle was human the concept of homosexuality would have been so off his radar that he would be totally freaked by it. So yeah. Good luck, Jasper.**

**As for James' INSANE behaviour…well, since when did he ever need an excuse to bite nice people? What was going through his head will be properly explained in later chapters, but first I need to get some Jasper/Carlisle going.**

**I thought **_**this**_** chapter was difficult? The next one is probably going to be doubly so. OTL.**


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